Frank Luntz

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Frank I. Luntz (born February 23, 1962) is a "corporate consultant, pollster and political consultant to Republicans, Luntz's specialty is testing language and finding words that will help his clients sell their product or turn public opinion on an issue or a candidate.”[1] Luntz formed The Luntz Research Companies in 1992, and maintains offices in Alexandria, Virginia, and New York City.


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[edit] Background

Luntz is the son of Lester L. Luntz, D.D.S. (January 24, 1924–February 15, 1996), a pioneer in the field of forensic dentistry, and Phyllys Luntz (born January 8, 1926). Lester and Phyllys coauthored the 1981 book Handbook For Dental Identification. At a 1984 convention of the International Association of Forensic Sciences, Lester Luntz contested the validity of the dental x-rays that the Soviets used to identify the remains of Adolph Hitler.

Frank Luntz attended the private University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia and the University of Oxford and was in the Oxford Union's Standing Committee with Michael Gove, now a Conservative Member of Parliament.

[edit] Yearly briefing book

Luntz produces an extensive yearly briefing book to be disseminated among members of the Republican Party to popularize the phrases Republicans should use to frame all debates, all discussions. These phrases can then be used by Republicans in their talking points.

[edit] Use of language

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Luntz is most noted for crafting messages for the Republican Party using words and phrases that evoke strong emotional responses and which create a positive impression in most listeners towards the Republican Party and its policies. Instead of speaking of the "estate tax," one speaks of the "death tax."

Luntz choses the language he proposes carefully. Focus groups and interviews are an important part of the process for finding the right words and phrases. In an article in The New Yorker Luntz is quoted as saying, "The way my words are created is by taking the words of others — average Americans, not politicians. I've moderated an average of a hundred plus focus groups a year over five years...I show them language that I've created. Then I leave a line for them to create language for me."[2] Luntz is an influential figure world-wide. Because of this, many of his projects are closely analyzed and highly publicized.

Berkeley linguist George Lakoff has written at length and given speeches regarding the Republican use of language to sway the debate, and numerous liberal bloggers have used Lakoff's studies as a jumping-off point to compare Luntz's work to the Newspeak found in the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell. This comparison was brought out in an especially humorous manner in an interview by Samantha Bee of the Daily Show. Soon after commenting in voiceover that "Luntz has made a brilliant career spraying perfume on dog turds," she offers him a chance to tweak various words and phrases. "Drilling For Oil" becomes "Responsible Exploration For Energy." "Logging" becomes "Healthy Forests." "Manipulation" becomes "Explanation and Education." When offered the chance to redefine "Orwellian," Luntz, flummoxed, is unable to provide an answer. In a January 9, 2007, interview on Fresh Air with Terry Gross, however, Luntz redefines the term in a positive sense, saying that if one reads Orwell's Essay On Language (presumably referring to Politics and the English Language), "To be 'Orwellian' is to speak with absolute clarity, to be succinct, to explain what the event is, to talk about what triggers something happening…and to do so without any pejorative whatsoever."

However, within a few minutes he contradicts himself when discussing "energy exploration" (oil drilling). His research on the matter involved showing people a picture of current oil drilling and asking if in the picture it "looks like exploration or drilling." He said that 90 percent of the people he spoke to said it looked like exploring. "Therefore I'd argue that it is a more appropriate way to communicate." He went on to say "if the public says after looking at the pictures, that doesn't look like my definition of drilling, it looks like my definition of exploring, then don't you think we should be calling it what people see it to be. rather than adding a political aspect to it all." Terry Gross responded: "Should we be calling it what it actually is, as opposed to what somebody thinks it might be? The difference between exploration and actually getting out the oil — they're two different things, aren't they?"

On C-SPAN's "Afterwords" program on January 29, 2007, Luntz again attempted to illustrate the value of his "deep sea energy exploration" euphemism saying, "'Drilling' suggests that oil is pouring into the ocean. In Katrina, not a single drop of oil spilled in the Gulf of Mexico from the rigs themselves. That's why deep sea exploration is a more appropriate term."

In fact both mainstream press and the U.S. Department of Interior found numerous instances of spillage from offshore rigs. "As of August 8, 2006, MMS has identified 124 spills of petroleum products totaling 17,652 bbl (barrels) that were lost from platforms, rigs, and pipelines on the Federal OCS (Offshore Continental Shelf) as a result of damages from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005. Using the USCG size classifications for offshore spills, 110 of the spills or 89 percent were MINOR in size (less than 238 bbl), and 14 or 11 percent were MEDIUM in size (238 to 2,380 bbl)."

[edit] Logging

Luntz is credited with coining the term "Healthy Forests Initiative" for policies by the Bush administration that favor expanded logging by the logging industry.

[edit] Global warming

Although Luntz later tried to distance himself from the Bush administration policy, it was his idea to discredit the idea of global warming science (which he prefers to call "Climate Change," because its a less "hysterical" term) to keep the issue from influencing voters in the 2000 and 2004 U.S. presidential elections. Luntz has since said that he is not responsible for what the administration has done since that time. Though he now accepts the scientific consensus that there is man-made global warming, he maintains that the science was in fact incomplete, and his recommendation sound, at the time he made it.[3]

[edit] 2005 UK Conservative leadership election

In 2005 Luntz carried out a focus group on the Conservative leadership race on the BBC current affairs show Newsnight. The focus group's overwhelmingly positive reaction to David Cameron was seen by many as crucial in making him the favorite in a crowded field. Cameron was the eventual victor.[4] In March 2007, Newsnight invited him back to gauge comparative opinions on Cameron, Gordon Brown and Sir Menzies Campbell in the city of Birmingham.

[edit] Trivia

Luntz appears as a fictional character in Al Franken's satirical book, Why Not Me?, as Franken's pollster during his fictional presidential campaign in 2000. Franken repeatedly refers to Luntz as a "starfucker."

Some progressives have begun to emulate Luntz's use of political framing. Responding to conservatives' use of the term, "Death tax," some Democratic Senators and others have referred to the growing National Debt as a "birth tax", to highlight the fact that the debt burden is being transferred to future generations of Americans.[5][6][7]

Luntz wittily played the role of a corrupt political campaign manager on MTV's surreality sitcom Damage Control (TV series).[[1]] Claiming to be taping a campaign commercial for a local candidate, Luntz persuaded a hapless teenage boy to endorse the candidate's liberal credentials by chanting "white men can't dance" and pretending that his best friend was his gay lover — all while Luntz's 'candidate' was simulating passionate sex in the boy's parents' bedroom.


[edit] Bibliography

  • Lakoff, George. Don't Think of an Elephant: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate. New York: Chelsea Green Publishing, 2004.
  • Luntz, Frank. Candidates, Consultants, and Campaigns: The Style and Substance of American Electioneering. New York: Blackwell, 1988.
  • Luntz, Frank. Words That Work: It's Not What You Say, It's What People Hear. New York: Hyperion, 2007.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Interview Frank Luntz. PBS Frontline. Retrieved on March 23, 2007.
  2. ^ Lemann, Nicholas (October 16, 2000), "The Word Lab: The mad Science Behind What the Candidates Say", The New Yorker
  3. ^  (2006). "Climate chaos: Bush's climate of fear" [TV Programme]. UK: BBC.
  4. ^ "How a celebrity pollster created Cameron" by Nick Cohen, The Observer, 10 December 2006
  5. ^ The Angry Liberal, Goodbye, Death Tax. Hello, Birth Tax!, June 23, 2003. Retrieved February 9, 2007.
  6. ^ Daily Kos, The Birth Tax, February 3, 2005. Retrieved February 9, 2007.
  7. ^ Senator Dianne Feinstein, 44 Senators Urge Bush Not to Increase National Debt to Pay for His Social Security Plan, February 3, 2005. Retrieved February 9, 2007.

[edit] External links

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